My diploma from Florida State University is signed by President Bernie Sliger.

But Stanley Marshall was always "my" president.

So his passing Sunday at age 91 is an occasion of some melancholy for me. Though certainly not for everyone.

It can be argued Marshall was one of the two least popular presidents in FSU history. Only his predecessor, John Champion, engendered fewer feelings of warmth and admiration from faculty and students.

Critics objected to many of Marshall's presidential decisions, from reorganizing the administration to the people he hired to taking away a room used as a faculty club. They said he he was duplicitous and ruthless: He fired a popular dean at Christmas and was accused of engineering his replacement of Champion. They disliked him for his political conservatism: They believed he over-reacted to student protest because he cared more about Florida's political and business leaders than he did about faculty and students.

I don't bring this up to sully Marshall's memory. Only to observe that people can be different things to different people at different times in their lives.

I enrolled at FSU in fall 1969, shortly after Marshall became president. It would be 1980 before I got around to graduating. But my main memories of college life — and university presidents — were formed during Marshall's tenure (1969-1976).

It was Dean of Basic Studies Stephen Winters who gave us the standard disclaimer at freshman orientation about how tough college would be: "Look at the student to your left, look at the student to your right; one of the three of you will not be here in four years."

But it was Marshall who added: "Now, look a few places to your right and look a few places to your left. One of those may be your future husband or wife." As Marshall said to me years later, "And sometimes I was right."

As a student, I had a favorable opinion of Marshall. I attended protest rallies and marched on his office. Unlike protest leaders, I never particularly expected him to accede to protestors' demands. I grew up in a military household; I was not unaccustomed to grownups saying, "No."

I remember one night when we marched on his Tennessee Street presidential home. Marshall came out on the porch with his wife. He answered the shouted questions calmly and thoughtfully. He seemed unperturbed, even amused, that hundreds of angry students were gathered on his front lawn.

We went away grumbling but mollified. After all, the president had talked to us. And had done so with politeness and respect.

"I know he was politically conservative and we had philosophical disagreements," said the most famous of protesters, "Radical" Jack Lieberman. "But on a personal level, he was always a gentleman, and I appreciated that."

When I began writing for this newspaper, in 1980, Marshall and I initiated a relationship. I called him for questions about FSU history and sports. I called him for comments on politics. We saw each other at dozens of FSU events. He wrote or called me frequently about things in the newspaper.

He was not garrulous (though he had one of the most pleasant-sounding voices I've ever heard). He spoke in the manner of the high-school science teacher he once was: measured and succinct. He rarely volunteered asides. But he answered fully whatever you asked.

He discussed the occasional back story with me: The 1969 Westcott fire was most likely arson, though officials were unable to prove it. He tried to talk Champion out of resigning: "It was definitely a palace coup (by faculty members)." Despite heavy lobbying by local leaders, Marshall never considered Leon High football coach Gene Cox for the FSU job Marshall filled with Bobby Bowden. If FSU supporter/Jewish doyenne Ruby Diamond rescinded a $5 million donation because she was upset Marshall gave an honorary degree to Jordan's King Hussein, "I never heard that and I don't believe it."

We had one rough patch.

In 2006, he published his FSU memoir, "The Tumultuous Sixties. Campus Unrest and Student Life At A Southern University." Marshall spends most of the book advancing the belief that student protest during his tenure had FSU on the edge of violence — and that it was only his strong actions that prevented violence from erupting.

I wrote a column assailing the book, accusing him of blowing student protest at FSU out of proportion. I wrote that student protest at FSU was more "passionate than dangerous." I quoted others from the period saying the same thing.

Marshall responded with an angry — but polite — letter to the editor. He wrote, "Gerald Ensley is a friend of long standing but I must take exception to several elements in his discussion of my book." Marshall wrote he had information from police sources that "convinced me violence could happen here." He called my column "disappointingly one-dimensional."

For maybe a year, our relations were frosty. If I left a voicemail, he was slow to return the call and terse with his answers. When we met at events, he shook my hand, but moved on quickly with little more than, "Good to see you."

Eventually, things returned to normal. He answered my phone messages quickly and talked at length. When we met at events, he lingered to talk. He emailed me occasionally to praise one of my columns.

All of this is to say, people are never all one way or another. I don't doubt Marshall was ruthless as a leader. I believe he over-reacted to student protest. I understand people who worked for him knew him better than I.

But he always treated me with respect and kindness, even when I incurred his ire. That's all I can ask of a person.